News & Announcements

A bill passed by the Michigan State Senate would endanger the health of Michiganders by granting sweeping new powers to practitioners of unscientific bogus medicine and treatments, said the Center for Inquiry.

Volume 36

November 1, 1995

TELEPHONE IN “ALIEN AUTOPSY” REVEALS FILM IS HOAX

The “Alien Autopsy” movie, which purports to show a 1947 autopsy of an extraterrestrial creaturerecovered from a flying saucer that (allegedly) crashed in New Mexico, could not possibly have been filmedbefore 1956. The modern design “wall telephone” visible in the autopsy room was not introduced byAmerican Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) until 1956. (The “Alien Autopsy” film aired on the Fox TV networkon Aug. 28 and was repeated a week later, on Sept. 4 [SUN #35/Sept. 1995]. The film also has been broadcast on Britishand other European TV networks.)

This significant anomaly was spotted and brought to SUN’s attention by Tom Holzel, who formerlyworked for AT&T and is now a vice president of a Northern California electronics company. Holzel, who chancedto see “Alien Autopsy” in a hotel room, doubted that the modern wall telephone was in use in 1947. Holzel confirmed his suspicions when he located a book on the history of the telephone, titled “Once Upon a Telephone, “co-authored by Ellen Stern and Emily Gwathmey. The book was published in 1994 by Harcourt Brace.

The colorfully illustrated book reports that in 1949 AT&T introduced its Type 500 desk set, designed by famousindustrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, which was the first to use a coiled phone cord. And the Dreyfuss-designed walltelephone (including coiled phone cord), which is visible in “Alien Autopsy,” did not make its debut until 1956—NINE YEARS AFTER THE FILM ALLEGEDLY WAS SHOT. (Illustrations from page 35 of the book areshown below.)

“Alien Autopsy” Owner Refuses To Provide Film Sample For Tests

London movie distributor Ray Santilli, who reportedly agreed to provide a 2-inch film strip to RobertShell who had arranged for it to be analyzed by Eastman Kodak [SUN #35/Sept. 1995], recently informed Shellthat he will be unable to do so. The reason, according to Santilli, is that he has been overruled by the man who(allegedly) owns the film, Volker Spielberg, of Hamburg, Germany. (Shell is editor of “Shutterbug” magazine.)

Santilli, who claims he spent two years trying to authenticate the movie, failed to take advantage ofa similar offer made earlier by Eastman’s British affiliate, Kodak Ltd. Confirmation of the earlier Kodak Ltd.offer was provided to SUN by Christian R. Page, whoSkeptics UFO Newsletter -2- Nov. 1995is chairman of O.C.I.P.E. (Organization de Compilation D’Information Sur Les ET Phenomenes Etranges), St-

Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, after he read about Shell’s arrangements in SUN #35. Page providedcopies of his correspondence with Peter G. Milson, a Kodak Ltd. official in London, which clarifies claimsmade that the film might be of 1947 vintage.

In a letter dated July 12, 1995, Milson said: “So far, we have NOT seen any of the footage whichallegedly shows the autopsy of aliens....we have received a small piece of the leader film (which is allegedlyfrom the front of the Roswell footage). There was an edge code on this leader which suggested that either theleader or the negative from which it was printed, was made in either 1927 or 1947 or 1967. But this wasdifficult to ascertain as we only had a small sample. We have also offered to examine the Roswell film herein Kodak and to offer an opinion as to its date. So far we have yet to receive the film.” [Emphasis added.] In afollow-up exchange between Page and Milson via Fax on Aug. 30-31, the Kodak Ltd. official indicated that Santilli still had not provided a film sample to permit detailed analysis.

Omni Magazine Exposes Roswell Researcher Schmitt’s False Claims

The Fall issue of Omni magazine reveals that Roswell researcher/author DON SCHMITT knowinglyresorted to falsehood to accuse the Government of cover-up of key information. This has prompted his long-timepartner and co-author KEVIN RANDLE to issue a public statement in which he characterized Schmitt as “apathological liar.” The Omni article, entitled “The Case Of The Vanishing Nurses,” was authored by PaulMcCarthy, a writer with a long-time interest in UFOs.

Roswell mortician Glenn Dennis claims that a friendly nurse at the Roswell Army Air Field(RAAF) revealed to him that she had participated in a preliminary autopsy on July 7, 1947, on three strange creatures,presumably recovered from a crashed UFO [SUN #31/Jan. 1995; SUN #32/Mar. 1995]. Dennis claims he gave the (alleged) nurse his “solemn oath” that he would never reveal her story or identity—a solemn oath which he decided toviolate six years ago. When Roswell researchers Schmitt, Randle, Stanton Friedman and Karl Pflock expressed interestin trying to locate “Nurse X,” Dennis gave them her name: Naomi Maria Selff. The names of five nurses based atRAAF in 1947, shown in a group photo in the 1947 RAAF Year-book, did not include Naomi Maria Selff. But ifone or more of the five nurses listed could be located, they should remember her—IF Nurse X really existed.

In McCarthy’s article, he reports that during a 1994 interview, Schmitt claimed that despite hisrigorous efforts he had not been able to locate military records for Naomi Maria Selff or for any of the fivenurses known to have been based at RAAF in 1947. Seemingly, this substantiated Randle/Schmitt’s claim of agovernment cover-up. McCarthy wrote: “When I told my editors at Omni this intriguing tale, I proposedwriting it up as an example of investigatory diligence and the lengths to which UFO researchers would go touncover witnesses. To my surprise, Omni saw something entirely different. It was an opportunity todoublecheck Randle and Schmitt’s claims....Could I find the nurses’ records? And...the expense budget beingsmall, could I do so from my desk in Hawaii, without leaving home.”

McCARTHY LOCATES “MISSING” NURSE RECORDS IN ONLY THREE DAYS

Within three days, McCarthy reports, he had located the records for the five nurses by contactingthe National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. Within three weeks McCarthy had those records inhand. It took a little longer for McCarthy to track down each of the five nurses and to learn that only one—Rosemary Brown, age 78—was still alive and living in a nursing home. McCarthy interviewed her by telephone and reported: “She remembered the other four year-book nurses, but notNurse X, and not Glenn Dennis himself.” [Emphasis added.]

When McCarthy told Schmitt how easily he had obtained the “missing” records for the five nurses,Schmitt then “did an about face. In a total reversal of his position, he told me he’d known about the St.Louis records,” and claimed he himself had interviewed nurse Rosemary Brown. Schmitt offered thefollowing explanation, according to McCarthy: “It is not that we were putting out misinformation, it is justthat we were denying that we found anything.” [Emphasis added.] McCarthy says that Schmitt “believes thatBrown may actually be Glenn Dennis’ nurse...even though her name is not the same as the one Dennis gavehim...” [Nor does nurse Brown’s 1947 photo resemble Dennis’ description of Nurse X.] Schmitt explainedthat this is “why I haven’t publicized the fact that we have found her.”

This prompted McCarthy to comment: “All well and good, but then why make an issue of the missingnurses in the first place, as if their very absence were proof of a government attempt to perpetrate conspiracy,erase information (and even people), and be sinister in the extreme?” When McCarthy sought evidence fromSchmitt that he had really located nurse Brown via the St. Louis records center, Schmitt referredhim to an “assistant,” named Brad Radcliffe, who allegedly had done the search. But when Radcliffe was contacted,McCarthy reports he obtained only an evasive run-around.

Randle Sharply Criticizes Former Partner, Severs Relations

Initially, McCarthy reports, Randle tried to defend Schmitt’s claim of “missing” records for the fivenurses, as Randle earlier had done when Schmitt was accused of falsifying his academic background andemployment record [SUN #33/May 1995]. Although SUN believes Randle was an unwitting victim of Schmitt’s talltales, McCarthy blames both: “Not only do they say they fabricated their ‘vanishing nurses’claim, which they hoped would be published in Omni, they also cited evidence that just didn’t stand up to inspection.”

On Sept. 10, shortly before publication of McCarthy’s article in Omni, Randle issued a “To Whom It MayConcern” letter which lambasted Schmitt and revealed an irrevocable split with his former partner. After brieflydiscussing Schmitt’s false claims about his education and employment, Randle said: “I had believed that hislying related only to his personal life. Now I learn that it doesn’t. Research that he claimed to have beendone was not done by him but by an ‘assistant.’ He claimed that he had searched for the Roswell nurses buttheir records were all missing. That is not even close to the truth....Instead of going through the front door inthe search, he chose to have his assistant go through the back doors. When that failed to produce anyresults, Schmitt declared that the records were all missing. Lies.

These lies to not appear in either of the books I wrote about Roswell. Yes, I did the writing.Schmitt would review the rough draft of chapters for the first book and then add his comments. Sometimes Iwould use what he wrote, if I had verified it....He did contribute one chapter which was the ‘Conclusions.’ Init, he claims that he had searched for the records of 11 men [who had been based at Roswell in 1947]. Hecould not find those 11 records. The Air Force researched the names and found the ‘missing’ records for mostof them. The others were of men with such common names that no determination could be made [SUN#30/Nov. 1994]. I asked for the documentation from Schmitt to prove this. He said he would send it butnever did. I wasn’t surprised.” Randle’s Sept. 10 letter defends the credibility of the twoRandle/Schmitt Roswell books as follows: “Every-thing I put into the books, I knew to be the truth because I had researched it myself,or I had checked to make sure the documentation existed...”

Randle’s Sept. 10 statement concludes: “The search for the nurses proves that he [Schmitt] will lieabout anything. He will lie to anyone....He has revealed himself as a pathological liar....He has destroyed hiswork and badly damaged mine....I will have nothing more to do with him.”

THE CRUCIAL QUESTION: If Randle was so easily fooled by a person he had worked with closely for morethan FIVE YEARS, is it reasonable to expect that he could distinguish fact from fantasy in the tales told himby persons he scarcely knew—such as Frank Kaufmann, Jim Ragsdale and former mortician Glenn Dennis—especially when Randle sorely wanted to believe their tales? [“ACREDULOUS MAN IS A DECEIVER” —Francis Bacon.]

Roswell Researcher Pflock Provides Latest Version of Mortician’sTale

The Fall issue of Omni also provides the latest version of the Glenn Dennis’ tale of his (alleged)experience with Nurse X, authored by Roswell researcher Karl Pflock, who has become a close confidant ofDennis. Pflock has critically questioned the crashed-saucer/ET- body tales told by other Randle/Schmitt “star witnesses,” such as Frank Kaufmann, Jim Ragsdale and Frankie Rowe, but Pflock endorses Dennis’ veracity. Although Pflock, Randle, Schmitt and Stanton Friedman sharply disagree about many RoswellIncident issues, they ALL endorse the tale told by Dennis.

Pflock’s Omni article carries the headline: “STAR WITNESS: The Mortician of Roswell Breaks HisCode of Silence.” In reality, Dennis broke the “solemn oath” of secrecy he allegedly gave to Nurse X morethan six years ago. His tale has been recounted in many books and articles and he has appeared onnumerous TV shows. When significant changes in Dennis’ tale are spotted, he claims he was misquoted or misunderstood. [Dennis’ statements in Pflock’s article are based on a tape-recorded interview.]

DID THE (ALLEGED) PATHOLOGISTS COME FROM WALTER REED HOSPITAL?

When Dennis was interviewed early this year by Associated Press reporter TimKorte, the subsequent AP story quoted Dennis as saying: “She [Nurse X] said there were two pathologists from Walter Reed Hospital “who were performing the autopsy. This was a very important new detail (whose significance will be discussed below), which was reported in the March issue of SUN. When Pflock read this in SUN, he called Dennis, whoindicated that the AP reporter had misunderstood. (Dennis claims that when he received a call on the afternoon ofJuly 7, 1947, from the RAAF base mortuary officer, asking about the effect of embalming fluid onhuman tissue, that Dennis had suggested he consult with pathologists at Walter Reed Hospital.)

So when Pflock called me on March 15 after his discussion with Dennis, Pflock suggested that theAP reporter had erred and thought Dennis said the nurse had said the two pathologists had come fromWalter Reed Hospital. Pflock said he planned to check with AP reporter Korte, adding: “If this is an accuratequote, we have an interesting situation.” Seemingly, Pflock recognized the significant implications of this “new” Dennis claim.

Fortuitously, SUN had chanced to obtain a videotape of a Roswell-related show that included aninterview with Dennis, produced by Carl Day of Dayton [Ohio] TV station WDTN, which had been broadcast onMay 20, 1994. After learning from Pflock that Dennis questioned the accuracy of the AP article by Korte, SUNwrote to Carl Day on March 25 to ask if he would review the transcript of his interview to see if Dennis hadmentioned the two pathologists and where they were from in portions of the interview that were not broadcast. OnApril 10, Day called and read me the following transcript of what Dennis had said on-camera: “The guys—they were in with the nurse—they were flown in from Walter Reed hospital out of Washington and they were inthere doing a partial autopsy.” This was reported in the May issue of SUN. A similar statement about the pathologists having come from Walter Reed hospital was contained in a report entitled “The Glenn Dennis Story,” which I had purchased at Roswell’s International UFO Museum. Dennis is a vice president of the museum.

Pflock talked with the AP reporter, who said he was confident that his quote was accurate, and Pflockwent to the trouble of contacting WDTN’s Carl Day who provided further confirmation that Dennis had said thetwo pathologists had come from Walter Reed Hospital. Surprisingly, this did not have any noticeable effect on Pflock’s confidence in Dennis’ veracity. Instead, in Pflock’s letter of May 9, he now claimed that Dennis had not denied making thestatement about the two pathologists having come from Walter Reed but rather that Dennis had said “hedidn’t recall making such a statement to Korte. A fine distinction, but an important one.”

In the recent Omni article, Pflock asked Dennis: “Did the nurse know who the doctors were or where theycame from?” Dennis responded: “I asked her, and she said she’d never seen them before. She told me she heardone say to the other that they’d have to do something when they got back to Walter Reed Army Hospital.”

[Emphasis added.]

The Walter Reed Hospital Claim Torpedoes Other Dennis Claims

If two pathologists had been flown out from Washington D.C. and were engaged in a preliminary autopsyon the ET bodies by mid-afternoon on Monday, July 7, 1947, as Dennis now claims, they would have had to departWashington no later than early Monday morning. This means that RAAF officials must have learned of thecrashed UFO and ET bodies at least by late Sunday, July 6—the day BEFORE rancher “Mac” Brazel drove to Roswell to report discovery of the unusual debris—which triggered the whole “Roswell Incident.”

With this new Dennis scenario, chief intelligence officer Maj. Jesse Marcel andcounter-intelligence officer Capt. Sheridan Cavitt would certainly have spent Monday, July 7, at the crash site, inspecting the UFO and ETbodies and supervising their recovery. But according to Marcel, he was having lunch at the Officers Club Mondaynoon when he received a call from sheriff George Wilcox telling about rancher Brazel. Marcel and Cavitt thenspent several hours that afternoon driving back to Brazel’s ranch to inspect and collect the unusual debris.

According to the Omni article, in the early afternoon of July 7, Dennis said hereceived several telephone calls from the RAAF base mortuary officer. During the second call, according to Dennis, “he wanted to knowabout embalming fluid: what chemicals it contained, what it would do to bodies that had been lying out inthe open. Would it change the stomach contents? Would it change the tissue, the blood.He also wanted to know about our procedures for removing bodies from a site...” [Emphasis added.] If Walter Reed pathologistswere flying out to Roswell, the answers to such questions could await their arrival. FURTHERMORE, THE (ALLEGED) ET BODIES WOULD BE EMBALMED ONLY IF THEY WERE BEING READIED FOR BURIAL ANDNOT FOR AN AUTOPSY.

The most incongruous question that Dennis claims he was asked in the early afternoon of July 7—how toremove bodies from a site—indicates that the (alleged) bodies were still at the crash site. YET BARELY ANHOUR LATER, WHEN DENNIS CLAIMS HE ARRIVED AT THE BASE HOSPITAL, THE BODIES HAD BEEN RECOVERED AND THEIR AUTOPSY WAS UNDER WAY.

Dennis Reports Seeing One/Two Debris-Filled Ambulance(s)

Dennis first went public with his tale on Aug. 5, 1989, in a taped interview with Roswell researcherStanton Friedman. In that interview, Dennis said that when he drove a slightly injured airman to the base hospitalon the afternoon of July 7, he parked alongside “one of the old military, square ambulances....There was (sic) these two MPs and the door [singular] was open to the military ambulance [singular] there and that’s wheresome wreckage was....I just looked and glanced in and I just kind of kept going and I went on in [the hospital].”[Emphasis added.]

In a sworn statement by Dennis, executed on Aug. 7, 1991, and included in Pflock’s own lengthy report “Roswell In Perspective,” Dennis added some new details to his original account to Friedman [SUN #29/Sept.1994]. He said he drove the injured airman “around to the back of the base infirmary and parked it next toanother ambulance. The door [singular] was open and inside I saw some wreckage. Therewere several pieces which looked like the bottom of a canoe, about three feet in length....There was some strange-looking writingon the material resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. Also there were two MPs present...”[Emphasis added.]

But in Pflock’s Omni interview, Dennis reports there were at least two military ambulances filledwith debris. “When we got to the first ambulance, one of the rear doors was open....I saw something in therethat looked like half of a canoe, leaning up against the side near the open door....I remember markings on thecanoe-shaped thing....They were about four inches high....I saw the same kind of wreckage in thesecond one. [Emphasis added.] The doors were closed on the third ambulance, so I couldn’t see what was in it.” [Neitherrancher Brazel, Maj. Marcel nor Capt. Cavitt ever reported seeing canoe-shaped objects.]

If any of these versions were true, at least one ambulance had been used to transport the debris andET bodies from the crash site, and by the time that Dennis arrived the bodies already were insideundergoing autopsy. Yet the ambulance(s) with precious crashed debris was/were still sitting outside thehospital. Why hadn’t the debris been driven to a nearby hangar for examination and readied for shipmentto Wright Field for analysis?

If neither of the MPs knew how to drive and no other drivers could be found atRAAF, why didn’t the officer who ordered the two MPs to guard the ambulance(s) think to close the door(s) to keep the crashdebris secret from unauthorized persons like Dennis?

During Pflock’s interview he asked Dennis: “Why do you think the nurse and everything about her seem tohave vanished?” Dennis replied: “This is just my surmise, but I think when she was transferred [immediatelyafter the incident], they discharged her and arranged for her to join an order, enter a convent. Everything wascovered up with the church’s help.” [SUN Comment: An alternative explanation is that Nurse X is a figmentof Dennis’ imagination.]

MUFON Analysis Offers Valuable Insights Into UFO-Abduction Tales

The results of an analysis by MUFON’s Dan Wright of the UFO-abduction stories told by 142 subjects, which hereported at MUFON’s recent conference in Seattle, SHOULD DEMOLISH THE CLAIM THAT THE SIMILARITY OFTHEIR TALES SHOWS THEIR REALITY. But, ironically, the data that Wright presenteddo not seem to have raised any doubts in his own mind because he devises ingenious explanations for the differences.

Wright analyzed 560 transcripts of tape-recorded sessions with 142 subjects, provided by 15 different “abductiontherapists,” including David Jacobs, John Carpenter, Richard Haines, Richard Hall, Joseph Nyman, Dr. JohnMiller, Yvonne Smith, and Karla Turner. Wright’s recent report was an update to an earlier one, based on 95 differentsubjects, published in the February and March, 1994, issues of the MUFON UFO Journal [SUN #27/May 1994].

Wright reported that 32% of the subjects said that they and/or the ETs were able to pass throughsolid walls or windows during the incident. (Presumably the other 68% used more prosaic means ofingress/egress.) Nearly 53% of the subjects reported they were “floated up” into the UFO, and nearly half ofthese were “levitated” via a beam of light. However, 9% of the subjects reported that “they were mentally compelled to walk from their home or car to a nearby isolated location. There, a small ship rested or hovereda few feet off the ground,” which they boarded by means of steps or a ramp. This prompts Wright to speculate that “the level of technology at the disposal of certain entity groups is less advanced than thatemployed by others.”

Wright’s Data Show ETs Come In Many Colors, Shapes And Sizes

In an effort to explain the wide variation in descriptions of ET appearance—ranging fromshort/bald to very tall with long blond hair, as well as ETs that resemble lizards and giant insects, Wrightconcludes that UFO abductions are carried out by teams that typically consist of a variety of different types,each with a special mission. For example, the physical abduction is carried out by “very short whitish, greyishor bluish beings.” Aboard the UFO, the proceedings are supervised by a tall ET, whose skin color may bewhite, gray, green or brown. Additionally, according to Wright, there are numerous reports of extremelytall human-like ETs with long blond hair. And in a “significant number of cases, a heavily wrinkled ‘old one’ hasmade a brief appearance during the procedures.” Wright only briefly mentions two other types of ETs, one ofwhich resembles a giant lizard while the other resembles a giant insect.

Roughly 29% of the subjects reported that ETs probed their brain, in some cases using needles or drillinginstruments, and in a few cases their brains were “laid open.” For the remaining 71% of the “abductees,” the ETs showedno interest in their brains. [Based on some “abductees” we’ve seen on TV talk shows, SUN is notsurprised.] About 20% reported that ETs took samples of blood, tissue, bone marrow or bodily fluids, but 80% reportedno samples taken.

A total of 30 subjects (21%) reported they had received alien implants, some through the nose,some in or behind the ear, in the eye socket or in an arm or leg. But Wright provides no breakdown of howmany of each. Those who believe in the reality of UFO abductions suggest that alien implants are smallradio transmitters which ETs use to locate the subject for later abductions. If so, it seems strange that implants are installed in so many different locations.

SEX REARS ITS UGLY HEAD, SLIGHTLY

Despite the popular theory that the objective of (alleged) ET abductions is to obtain sperm and ovafor the creation of ET-hybrids, only 44% of the subjects reported “sexually-related intrusions,” according toWright. [SUN Comment: How disappointing to learn after being abducted that one’s ova or sperm is not up to ET standards!] Roughly two-thirds of the subjects were female. Wright does not detail how manyreported removal of ova, how many reported insertion and/or removal of a fetus. Wright notes: “In threeincidents, a woman was forced to have sexual relations with a male abductee....Two subjects recounted thatthey were mounted and raped aboard a craft—a woman by a taller figure with greyish-white skin, and a manby a short yellowish-grey female. In a third case, a woman awoke in bed amid the throes of sexual passionto discover scaly claws at her private parts—indicative of a reptilian type.” [Emphasis added.] [SUN AdviceTo Female Readers: Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.]

No Abduction Tale Is Too Wild To Be Believed

Wright’s 39-page paper, published in the MUFON conference proceedings, illustrates the intrinsicproblem with today’s UFOlogy: Almost no abduction tale is too wild to be dismissed by “Abductologists” as adream-fantasy or a concocted hoax. If an “abductee” reports his/her ET abductor resembled ahippopotamus or a chipmunk, this is not reason to reject the tale. Abductologists will rationalize that the ETcame from a different planet or that it implanted a false image in the subject’s mind. Four decades ago, “serious UFOlogists” disavowed the wild tales of George Adamski, who claimed hevisited a giant “mothership” equipped with elevators and a swimming pool. Today’s “abductees” tell talesthat would make the late Adamski cringe. Three decades ago, NICAP—then the nation’s most prominent pro-UFO group—was suspicious of reports from persons who claimed several UFO sightings,i.e., “repeaters.” One of the subjects of Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack claims she has been abducted more than 100 times.

Short Shrift:

Congressman Steven Schiff (R.-NM), who requested the General Accounting Office investigationinto the “Roswell Incident” because he claims to believe that “people have a right to information from theirgovernment,” continues to “stonewall” SUN’s Aug. 6 and Aug. 20 requests for a copy of the original draft ofthe GAO’s Roswell report and the changes which Schiff recommended [SUN #35/Sept. 1995]. Requestedchanges reportedly included deletion of GAO’s endorsement of the USAF’s findings that the unusual debrisdiscovered by rancher Mac Brazel probably came from a Project Mogul string of weather balloons, radarreflectors and acoustic sensors launched on June 4, 1947. Schiff’s refusal to release this material recalls the wise words of Ben Franklin: “HALF THE TRUTH IS OFTEN A GREAT LIE.”

If you’d like to obtain a copy of the 20-page GAO report, titled “Results of a Search for RecordsConcerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico, GAO/NSIAD-95-187, write to: U.S. General AccountingOffice, P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, Md. 20884-6015. First copy is free; additional copies cost $2 each.Orders also can be placed by phone: (301) 512-6000. Fax: (301) 258-4066.

Don’t be surprised if Don Schmitt “volunteers” to resign from the Board of Directors of the HynekCenter for UFO Studies (CUFOS) as a result of disclosure in the recent issue of Omni magazine of his falseclaims about the “missing” military records of the five Roswell nurses. This past spring, in the wake of anarticle about Schmitt in Milwaukee magazine which revealed falsehoods by Schmitt involving his academic background and employment record, he resigned as CUFOS’s Director of Special Investigations but retainedhis post on the CUFOS Board [SUN #33/May 1995; SUN #34/July 1995].

Worthy of consideration: “Otherwise normal people who claim they have been abducted by spacealiens are unconsciously trying to escape their mental burdens, and actually share many traits withmasochists, a University of Illinois psychologist has concluded,” according to an article in the Aug. 12 editionof The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. “Leonard S. Newman, who began his research four years ago when hewas at Case Western Reserve University, says its hard for many people to constantly keep up their self-image, worryabout staying in control and keep from being embarrassed. Fantasies such as being taken by a UFO are away of ‘escaping the self’ and its burdens, he told an audience at the American PsychologicalAssociation meeting here yesterday.” [Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack claims he cannot find any possible prosaicpsychological explanation which might prompt some people to tell UFO-abduction tales.]

Cloudy Crystal Ball: International UFO Reporter, published by CUFOS, offered the followingprediction by IUR editor Jerome Clark in its March/April 1991 issue: “In short order (in mid-June, to bespecific) Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt’s long-awaited ‘UFO Crash at Roswell” [book] will be out. Itrecords the most thoroughly investigated, the most completely documented event in the history of ufology.The Roswell incident is, of course, also the most important case of all. As its secrets are unraveled (and theinvestigation continues), ufology’s big questions, the ones that brought our field into being in the first place,are being answered: What are UFOs? Who pilots them? What does officialdom know, and when did it knowit [sic]? Those whose interpretation of the UFO phenomenon is based on empiricalevidence will rejoice as that heretofore unkillable canard, that UFO research has made no progress in four decades, is disposedof once and for all.” [Emphasis added.] SUN suggests: Save your rejoicing for the upcoming Holidays!

NOTE: Opinions expressed in SUN are those of its Editor—unless otherwisenoted—and do not necessarily represent the views of any organization with which he is affiliated—or his spouse. We thank Dr. Gary Posner for help in proofreading.

Philip J. Klass

Phil Klass was a UFO researcher with a background in electrical engineering. He was author of seven books on UFOs, including UFOs Explained and UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. He was also editor of the SUN newsletter, a UFO-related publication.

Content copyright CSI or the respective copyright holders. Do not redistribute without obtaining permission. Articles, reports, reviews, and letters published on the CSICOP.org website represent the views and work of individual authors. Their publication does not necessarily constitute and endorsement by CSI or its members unless so stated. Thanks to the ESO for the image of the Helix Nebula, also NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team for the image of NGC 3808B (ARP 87).